The real life anti-abortion horror stories I've seen in Northern Ireland should force Westminster to act

A High Court judgment has ruled that the country's abortion ban is a violation of human rights - but unless legislation is pushed through in the House of Commons, it's likely that Northern Irish women will be left continuing to suffer

Pro-choice protesters in Northern Ireland (Getty)

This morning a shock High Court judgment has ruled that Northern Ireland’s abortion ban is a violation of human rights. Unlike the rest of the UK which legalised terminations in 1967, abortion is currently illegal in Northern Ireland unless a woman’s life is in imminent danger.

As a Northern Irish woman, today’s news has been welcome and emotional. Too many women and girls who I have known and cared deeply about have suffered under the abortion ban for far too long. I’m only 23, but in my short life I’ve personally seen the ban put many women and girls through nothing short of torture.

First, it was the girl who was raped by her father whilst she was barely even a teenager, who was forced to give birth and spend the rest of her life looking after her disabled brother/ son.

Then the many women and girls I’ve known who have not reported their rape to the Northern Irish police in case they became pregnant and they themselves were then arrested for accessing an abortion.

Finally, the women who were told that their much loved pregnancy would not be viable because the foetus had grown without a brain or a skull and were then forced to carry on the pregnancy for many more months; forced to grimace through polite smiles as strangers cooed over their baby bump and asked when they were due, before finally enduring an arduous, painful and deeply traumatising labour leading to the birth of a dead child.

Today’s ruling comes too late for them. Theirs is a trauma that will never be acknowledged by Northern Irish legislators and may never heal. Yet today’s ruling means that finally this is something that the next generation may not have to endure. After hundreds of years of suffering and campaigning, the basic women’s rights denied us may at least now be available to our daughters.

Speaking today, the judge said that the ban is “incompatible with human rights law” and treats women as mere “receptacles”. He has recommended that abortion be finally allowed for victims of rape, victims of incest and when the foetus has an abnormality which means it will not survive birth.

However, the fight is not yet over. The legal system remains unclear if today’s ruling is enough to change the law, or if legislation still needs to be passed in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Almost all Northern Irish parties are against abortion and our Attorney General is a highly religious man who is vehemently anti-choice and previously described the procedure as the same as shooting a child with a gun. If the ruling would need to be ratified by the Assembly, there is next to no chance that this would pass due to the hardline religious parties in the chamber. So while today’s ruling is welcome, it is still possible that it might remain a set of abstract comments which never make it into Northern Irish law.

This is why I am now asking Westminster to legalise abortion in Northern Ireland by passing the legislation in the House of Commons. It’s a drastic proposal but it’s also a cry for help; help for Northern Irish women whose human rights are denied by their own parliament. The principle of devolution is that Northern Ireland is best placed to write its own laws, but we’ve seen that this simply isn’t happening.

Therefore, the time has now come for British government to get involved. Westminster needs to step in and ensure that today’s ruling actually makes it into law.

We cannot let today’s ruling be a pronouncement which is simply left in Stormont to gather dust and fall casualty to yet more self-righteous religious men posturing in Northern Irish parliament. Northern Irish women have waited far too long; Westminster mustn’t leave us unprotected in this torturous limbo any longer.